The present invention is in the field of telephony communication and has particular application to methods including software for routing incoming telephony calls from multiple service control points to agent-level in a communication center wherein equal access is afforded to callers from separate routing systems.
Telephone call processing and switching systems are, at the time of the present patent application, relatively sophisticated, computerized systems, and development and introduction of new systems continues. Much information on the nature of such hardware and software is available in a number of publications accessible to the present inventors and to those with skill in the art in general. For this reason, much minute detail of known systems is not reproduced here, as to do so may obscure the facts of the invention.
At the time of filing the present patent application there continues to be remarkable growth in telephone-based information systems. Recently emerging examples are telemarketing operations and technical support operations, among many others, which have grown apace with development and marketing of, for example, sophisticated computer equipment. More traditional are systems for serving customers of large insurance companies and the like. In some cases organizations develop and maintain their own telephony operations with purchased or leased equipment, and in many other cases, companies are outsourcing such operations to firms that specialize in such services.
A large technical support operation serves as a good example in this specification of the kind of applications of telephone equipment and functions to which the present invention pertains and applies, and a technical support organization will be used from time to time in the current specification for example purposes. Such a technical support system, as well as other such systems, typically has a country wide or even a world wide matrix of call centers for serving customer""s needs. Such call center operations are more and more a common practice to provide redundancy and decentralization. However, the components of the present specification can apply to a single call center as well, and t home agent systems.
In a call center, a relatively large number of agents handle telephone communication with callers. Each agent is typically assigned to a telephone connected to a central switch, which is in turn connected to a public-switched telephone network (PSTN), well-known in the art. The central switch may be one of several types, such as Automatic Call Distributor (ACD), or a Private Branch Exchange (PBX).
An organization having one or more call centers for serving customers, typically provides one or more telephone numbers to the public or to their customer base, or both, that may be used to reach the service. The number or numbers may be published on product packaging, in advertisements, in user manuals, in computerized help files, and the like.
There are basically two scenarios. If the organization providing the service has a single call center, the number will be to the call center, and all further routing to an agent will be at the call center. If there are several call centers, the organization may provide several numbers, one for each call center, and the customer may be expected to use the number for the closest center, or for the center advertised to provide specifically the service he or she might need. In some cases the number provided will connect the caller with a first Service Control Point (SCP) which is adapted to pre-process incoming calls and forward the calls to other call centers.
Routing of calls, then, may be on several levels. Pre-routing may be done at SCPs and further routing may be accomplished at individual call centers. As described above, a call center typically involves a central switch, which may be, for example, an Automatic Call Distributor (ACD), or a Private Branch Exchange (PBX) or other equivalent (IP is switch less per se). The central switch is connected to the PSTN network, well known in the art. Agents, who are trained to handle customer service, use telephones connected to the central switch. This arrangement is known in the art as Customer Premises Equipment (CPE).
If the call center consists of just a central switch and connected telephone stations, the routing that can be done is very limited. Switches, although increasingly computerized, are limited in the range of computer processes that may be performed. For this reason additional computer capability in the art has been added for such central switches by connecting computer servers adapted to run control routines and to access databases. The processes of incorporating computer enhancement to telephone switches is known in the art as Computer Telephony Integration (CTI), and the hardware used is referred to as CTI equipment.
In a CTI system telephone stations connected to the central switch may be equipped also with computer terminals, so agents manning such stations may have access to stored data as well as being linked to incoming callers by a telephone connection. Such stations may be interconnected in a network by any one of several known network protocols, with one or more servers also connected to the network one or more of which may also be connected to a processor providing CTI enhancement, also connected to the central switch of the call center. It is this processor that provides the CTI enhancement for the call center.
When a call arrives at a call center, whether or not the call has been pre-processed at a SCP, typically at least the telephone number of the calling line is made available to the receiving switch at the call center by a telephone carrier. This service is available by most PSTNs as caller-ID information in one of several formats. If the call center is computer-enhanced (CTI) the phone number of the calling party may be used to access additional information from a database at a server on the network that connects the agent workstations. In this manner information pertinent to a call may be provided to an agent.
It is known to the inventors that more recently Data Network Telephony (DNT) communication has been integrated into the call center environment. Internet Protocol Network Telephony (IPNT), which is a sub-set of DNT, is most often used in today""s DNT-capable call centers. Computer simulated telephony is now being practiced in many CTI call centers. In many cases, equipment is altered or modified to handle both Connection-Oriented-Switched-Telephony (COST) and DNT telephony simultaneously and in a seamless fashion. Because of added communication capabilities existing in today""s call centers, a more appropriate term of communication center will hereinafter be used in this specification.
In a very large communication center, it is desired that all incoming calls whether from a COST network or from an IPNT network be handled efficiently by available agents. In some cases calls are routed from network level to a call center, and then further routed to agents at the communication center. Calls are typically distributed to such agents based on availability of the agent, and in this system availability of agents is tracked at the call center level. In other systems, employing what the inventors term agent-level routing, Service Control Points (SCPs) in the network route calls to agent level at call centers. In this arrangement agent availability is typically tracked at the network level, and updated from the call-center level. In either system If a first agent is unavailable, a caller must wait for the agent to become available, or be transferred to another available agent. When incoming calls to a communication center are from different routing systems in a telephony network it becomes difficult to insure equal and fair access to agents for all of the callers. This is due to various states of latency that exist in separate routing systems.
Latency factors such as equipment speed and line speed can vary, greatly over large geographical regions within a service network such as a public network. This is due to partly to the fact that older equipment is upgraded to new equipment on a gradual basis. The same is true with network lines and connections. Because of this inconsistency over large portions of a telephony network, some callers or groups of callers to a communication center may inadvertently get much better service because of the fact that they are being routed over faster lines with better equipment. In considering DNT networks, similar latency conditions exist that may cause some callers or groups of callers to receive poor service compared to those routed in over superior connections with superior equipment.
What is clearly needed is a method and apparatus that eliminates inadvertent unequal access associated with regional groups of callers that may exist because of unequal latency factors in their portion of a network. A system such as this would insure that all callers receive comparable service from a communication center regardless of the latency factors.
In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, in a communication center, a method for ensuring fairness in response to electronic requests from network-level entities to connect to an agent station at the communication center is provided, comprising steps of (a) receiving a first request from a first network-level entity for connection to the agent at the communication center; (b) starting a fairness timer for a timed period; (c) receiving, during the period of the fairness timer, a second request for the connection to the same agent station from a second network-level entity; and (d) determining to grant, through execution of a fairness algorithm at expiration of the period of the fairness timer, one of the first and second requests from the network level entities.
In preferred embodiments latency times for network level entities requesting connection at the communication center are known, and in step (b) the period of the fairness timer is set to be equal to or greater than twice the difference between network round-trip latency for the longest latency and shortest latency routers requesting service from the communication center. Also in preferred embodiments the requests may be for telephony connections, either connection-oriented switched telephony (COST) or Internet Protocol Network Telephony (IPNT) calls, including any type of multimedia calls.
In some embodiments the method includes a further step for starting an agent reservation timer at the same time as starting the fairness timer, the agent reservation timer having a period longer than that of the fairness timer. The time of the reservation timer in one embodiment is longer than that of the fairness timer by a time sufficient for a connection to be made to the agent station once access is granted, and for notification of the connection to be made to network-level entities. The fairness algorithm may operate on one or both of load and agent availability data.
In another aspect of the invention a communication center is provided, comprising a communication switching device connected to agent stations for switching communications to individual ones of the agent stations; a computer-telephony integration (CTI) processor coupled to the communication switching device; and a digital link between the CTI processor and network-level routing entities for receiving requests from network-level entities for connection to agent stations. In this communication center the CTI processor, on receiving a first request for connection to an agent station, starts a fairness timer having a time-out period, and in the event of receiving a second or more requests for connection to the same agent station during the fairness time period, executes a fairness algorithm at the end of the time-out period to determine which request to grant.
In preferred embodiments of the communication latency times for network-level entities requesting connection at the communication center are known, and the period of the fairness timer is set to be equal to or greater than twice the difference between network round-trip latency for the longest latency and shortest latency routers requesting service from the communication center. The connection requests may be for telephony connections, either connection-oriented switched telephony (COST) or Internet Protocol Network Telephony (IPNT) calls.
In some embodiments of the communication center the CTI processor starts an agent reservation timer at the same time as starting the fairness timer, and the agent reservation timer having a period longer than that of the fairness timer. A suggested value for the reservation timer is longer than that of the fairness timer by a time sufficient for a connection to be made to the agent station once access is granted, and for notification of the connection to be made to network-level entities. In preferred embodiments the fairness algorithm operates on one or both of load and agent availability data.
In yet another aspect of the invention an agent-reservation fairness software for operation in a communication center and dealing with requests by network-level routers for connection to agents at the communication center is provided, comprising a monitor for monitoring incoming requests for connection to agents; an initiator for starting a fairness timer having a fairness time-out period; and a fairness algorithm for determining which of multiple requests for connection to a same agent to grant. The monitor, on receiving a first request for connection to an agent causes the initiator to start the fairness timer, and at expiration of the fairness time-out period, in the event of further requests for connection to the same agent, the fairness algorithm executes and determines which request for the same agent to grant.
In preferred embodiments of the software the period of the fairness timer is set to be equal to or greater than twice the difference between network round-trip latency for the longest latency and shortest latency routers requesting service from the communication center. The requests may be for telephony connections, either connection-oriented switched telephony (COST) or Internet Protocol Network Telephony (IPNT) calls.
In some embodiments of the software there is a second initiator for starting an agent reservation timer at the same time as starting the fairness timer, the agent reservation timer having a period longer than that of the fairness timer. The period of the agent reservation timer is longer than that the fairness timer by a time sufficient for a connection to be made to the agent station once access is granted, and for notification of the connection to be made to network-level entities, and the fairness algorithm may operate on one or both of load and agent availability data.
In embodiments of the invention described below in enabling detail, for the first time a system is provided for call centers wherein fair access can be provided to requests for service from multiple and disparate sources having different latency characteristics, such that a request from a network entity having a long latency will receive equal chance of reserving and connecting to an agent as a network entity having a short latency.